Store cattle were dear then, and we could get them off easy there and come back by sea.

No one was to know we were not regular overlanders; and when we'd got the notes in our pockets it would be a hard matter to trace the cattle or prove that we were the men that sold 'em.
'How many head do you expect to get ?' says Jim.
'A thousand or twelve hundred; half of 'em fat, and two-thirds of them young cattle.' 'By George! that's something like a haul; but you can't muster such a lot as that without a yard.' 'I know that,' says father.

'We're putting up a yard on a little plain about a mile from here.

When they find it, it'll be an old nest, and the birds flown.' 'Well, if that ain't the cheekiest thing I ever heard tell of,' says I laughingly.

'To put up a yard at the back of a man's run, and muster his cattle for him! I never heard the like before, nor any one else.